Something To Die For
by JChandley
Summary: A sequel to Escape From Pandora. Dwight never thought ahead. Now, he has to deal with loneliness,  mobsters, the RDA, Pandora, and most importantly, the truth.
1. Return

**This is a direct sequel to my story Escape from Pandora. If you haven't read that, this won't make much sense. If you have, enjoy!**

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><p>There comes a time in everybody's life when they realize that they are going to die. It comes early for some, late for others. It's a time when you realize that, far from being invincible, humans have a short amount of time to live, love, work and die. It's a time when you realize that all things must come to an end, including your existence. I think it might be easier for religious people. As you probably know, my mom didn't tell me to worship a God. She was agnostic, and told me I should make my own decisions in life, and she didn't wish to push me one way or the other. If you believe in the afterlife, death must be less disturbing, less final for the atheists out there. But I still believe there comes a time when a man (or woman) makes the transition from thinking that death is a thing that happens to other people, to thinking that death is something very real.<p>

For me, it was the time the abusive prison warden of section A of the Pandoran Prison, Deibel, left me to die on the floor of my cell, watching the blood, my blood slowly pooling across the floor. That moment, I felt crushing loneliness, and complete and utter helplessness. That was the moment I truly believed I was going to die. Every day, even now, I thank Richard Hilton and the Na'vi for saving my life.

Hello. I'm Dwight Dolton, born on the 6th February 2219, first of two brothers, escapee of Pandora. Aspiring boxer, husband, almost-father. My story began with Pandora, and no doubt will end with it. I've told you of the prison, of my friends, of my wife, of my struggles. But I haven't told you what happened after. I haven't told you of Home, I haven't told you of Dad, I haven't told you of mobsters, of newspapers, of romance, of boxing, and more importantly, more of Pandora.

I think that in many ways Pandora is the center- point of my life. I'll never forget that planet full of wonders, and I'll be thinking of it on my deathbed. We are a generation defined by Pandora, by its beauty and its dangers. Even those who have never been still talk eagerly of going there someday, one dream that the RDA was later happy to exploit.

After the prison I was glad to be anywhere but there. After the time I had spent there, I was happy to go back to Earth and get as far away from Deibel, from Brydon as possible. But my time there was a story of two halves. There was no doubt in my mind that if it weren't for Deibel and the threat of death that I would have stayed in the prison. I had been given free reign of Pandora, and the time I had spent in the forest, with Ni'awtu and Leyra looking over me was one of the happiest periods of my life. It was ecstasy mingled in with horror, a cocktail that would have exploded if I had stayed longer. As I was readying myself to go back into cryosleep, I found myself being profoundly grateful for Lawrence. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have had the information or the manpower to pull of the escape.

The cryosleep room was just as I had remembered it. Of course, it wasn't filled to the brim with criminals this time. It seemed empty and lonelier somehow without a bunch of people. Sure, there was still a substantial amount, but the place still looked bare. I was still wearing my orange prison jumpsuit. I smiled as I noticed the patch on the shoulder and remembered the time when I had caught myself on a branch when Ni'awtu was landing her Ikran. When she saw me, she burst out laughing. No doubt it looked funny, a tiny human hanging on the branch of a massive tree, but for me, it was terrifying.

When she'd helped me down, she plucked at my clothes and tsked. I felt like a baby next to her tall body.

'I do not know why you wear this thing. It is not practical.' She said to me.

'It's not my choice. The prison makes me wear it.' I replied, dusting myself off.

'What is this prison?' she had asked me. I sighed when I realized that the Na'vi probably didn't have a word for prison, they were so…innocent, in a way. Not exactly the right word but you get the idea.

'It's a place where humans put other humans because they've been bad, I guess. For killing someone or stealing.'

'Are you a bad person Dwight?' she asked me, her footsteps quietly thumping against the hard earth. I thought long and hard about this before saying:

'I don't know.'

When I was climbing into the soft, gel like beds that I would be frozen in for the next four years or so, I realized that I didn't actually know how long I'd been in prison. Like I've said before, everyone tries to keep track of how long they've been in, but if you don't note it down, it all becomes a blur, the days and weeks melting together. It disturbed me, that I didn't know this. How many years on Earth would have passed? Ten? Twenty? It ashamed me to think that I couldn't even remember the date I'd gone in. I certainly didn't feel too much older, but then again, a lot had happened during my stay. It really worried me, as it was something I hadn't thought about in the whole escape process. Just now, when the adrenaline had worn off, was I scared. Maybe they'd destroyed my house? I sincerely hoped they hadn't.

Almost everyone who's been in prison long enough has something that they're going to do when they get out. For some it's eat a good steak. For others, just walk and walk, giddy at the thought that they can keep on walking and walking, with no limits but the borders and the ocean. Mine was to go back to my old house and say goodbye to Emma properly. Maybe even find something to remember her by, other than the photo that Deibel had so carelessly ripped up.

It was a few minutes before the compartment started closing and I felt the fear of being frozen for four years without dreaming loom over me. I couldn't remember my last thought, just like you can't remember the exact moment you fell asleep.

The four years passed in an eternity and in no time at all, and suddenly, I was back near Earth again.

Back Home.

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><p><strong>My other fanfic, Trouble in Pandoran Paradise is currently in hiatus as I work out some kinks in the plot. I hope you like the further adventures of Dwight :D<strong>

**Jchandley**


	2. Home

Before I boarded the Valkyrie, I decided to take a look at Earth from an observation window on the ISV. During my short yet long stay on our journey throughout space, the staff on this particular ship was less brash, violent and generally nicer towards Lawrence and I than the rough round up that was our arrival on Pandora. I imagined that they weren't exactly sure as to why we were on there, or trained prison guards. They were just there to bring the unobtanium back to Earth. That meant that they'd allowed me to go to the observation deck and look over Earth. I'd never seen a planet from Space before, save for a second glimpse or so of Pandora. I'll tell you, it's something that everyone should see.

I saw the horizon as a curved line, accentuated by a thin, dark blue seam of light. It took me a few seconds to realize that this was the atmosphere. And far from the dry, static, lifeless photographs I've seen, and the impressive but nevertheless, dare I say it, normal video footage, the Earth seemed so alive yet so fragile. The darkness of space was so intense I felt like it was going to swallow me up. I remembered a quote from my trainer used to like, but the meaning of it kind of dwindled when humans went to Pandora. It went like this: Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.

Now that wasn't exactly true, but the meaning of it still stood strong. Of maybe the thousands of humans that had set foot on Pandora, billions and billions had lived on this planet. Lived, died, and loved. I swallowed and wiped my eyes before hearing someone come up from behind me. Out of habit, I turned around to see who it was, my body tensing. It was Lawrence. He smiled, looking out of the window. He came up beside me, his face an expression of wonder. He patted me on the shoulder, then said quietly, just loud enough for me to hear:

'Everything's going to be Okay, Dwight.' I turned back around, to see Earth again, the green and blue planet that, in my opinion, was more amazing than Pandora.

'I hope so, Lawrence.' I sighed. 'I hope so.'

We stayed together, silent, until someone came to collect us. The ride in the Valkyrie was uneventful, y mind full of thoughts of Earth. When we landed, the door was left closed for about thirty seconds. I paid no attention to the crates of unobtanium in front of me. Finally, with a jolt, the door opened downwards, the dark of the night making itself evident. I hastily took off my belt and ran out, out onto the concrete. I took one large breath, then let it out, my breath snaking through the air as mist. I breathed like I'd just come up from water. I pawed at my face, so happy that I didn't have an exopack on. I was outside- and I could breath. It felt like a lifetime ago when I was still on Earth. I closed my eyes, feeling the cold wind rustle my jumpsuit. I laughed and laughed, looking up into the air, seeing the lights of the compound. The sky was pitch black, apart from one planet that I could see, small and unblinking in the black sky. I moved my gaze down, away from the large compound and over to the skyline of the city laid out before me. The yellow lights stood twinkling in the distance, whilst red and white lights moved on the road. I laughed again, oblivious to the other people's reactions to me. I wooped loudly, throwing my arms up in the air. I turned to a man on my right who was regarding me with some amusement, his hands behind his back.

'If you'd like to come with me, sir.' He asked me. I laughed again and nodded. He led me out of the compound and into a building, down some old stairs and into an area I recognized. It was a simple, white room with arrows on the floor. And a counter with steel cages dividing one side from the other. This was the room I was admitted in, all those years ago. It brought back memories of waiting in line, handcuffs on, with a small shoebox of possessions, ready to give to the people behind the counter. This was before we'd had our heads shaved, before we knew what the prison was actually like. In some ways, it felt like a travel agency at the time. Now it was empty and deserted. The man that had led me here produced some keys from his belt and unlocked a gate, moving behind the counters. He gestured me to come and follow him. We went into a room together. He reached to his left and flicked on a light switch. The lights illuminated rows and rows of compartments. Inside them were our shoeboxes. The man spoke to me.

'The RDA didn't exactly tell us what to do with this stuff. You'd be surprised at the lack of organization that goes on here. This is where we keep the prisoners possessions.'

'Do you ever get rid of any?' I asked as he looked at the number on my jumpsuit and led me through the room.

'Not yet. We still have space, and there are a lot more places that we keep this stuff. When someone gets out, we can give it to them.'

'Has anyone ever come back here yet?'

'There's been a few. They're usually old men that want to go home and see their son one last time, you know.' We reached an aisle and walked down it. The man ran his fingers along the shoeboxes before stopping and picking one up. 'We like to think the bigshots up there aren't entirely helpless' He smiled and handed the shoebox to me. I didn't open it until we were out of the room.

'Now for you, it looks like they already filled out the paperwork at the prison and sent it to someone to bring it back here. That means…well, this isn't something I usually say to people but, Mr…' he looked down at his piece of paper on the counter. 'Dolton. Mr. Dolton, you're free to go.' He held out his hand and I shook it firmly. I stood there for a second, confused as to what to do.

'You mean I can…' I gestured behind me. He looked up as he was locking the gate.

'Oh, yes. You got somewhere to stay?' I nodded slightly. 'Well then. That's okay.' I was about to walk out when I turned back and asked the man what year it was.

'Oh, it's 20th January 2267.' He smiled at me again and walked through the door we came from, leaving me all alone in the room, apart from a small security camera whirring in the corner. I sniffed. 2267. I had left for Pandora in 2249, when I was thirty. That was ten Earth years in cryosleep, and was that eight years in prison? I couldn't be sure. It certainly didn't feel like I'd spent eight years there, but then again, it didn't really feel like _any _amount of time. I probably wouldn't have been surprised if the man had said 2300. So that left one prevalent question. How exactly old was I? We hadn't celebrated birthdays in the prison, as neither the date nor time was ever given to us by any wardens or guards. If I counted the years in cryosleep, that meant I was forty-eight years old. No way was I that old, you don't age in cryosleep. So was I thirty-eight? I laughed to myself as I realized that I was asking myself how old I was. I'd go with thirty-eight, even if I didn't feel it.

Whilst still in the room, actually somewhat scared to go outside, I opened the box that I held in my hands. In it, I found a roll of paper money, the card to my house, a necklace, some boots and a razor. I picked up the necklace. It was simple, just a small chain. I put it on, the metal feeling cold against me skin. I tapped my feet, looking down at my jumpsuit. Did I not have a change of clothes? I sighed, staring at the door. Outside was my salvation. Home. As I was gearing myself up, the man who had led me down here came back, this time with Lawrence.

'You know, it's strange really…' he stopped mid-sentence. 'You're still here.' He said. Obviously.

'Yeah…' I said sheepishly. 'Do I get a change of clothes?'

'The guys outside have one for you.'

'Thanks.' I said. I turned back around to the doors, walked a step, and then stopped. I looked at the floor.

'What's up, Dwight?' Lawrence asked. I turned back around, and stay stood in the same spot as I had been maybe ten minutes ago. I shuffled my feet.

'I don't know if I can go out there.' I said.

Lawrence regarded me seriously. 'You have to, Dwight. This is what we wanted.' I massaged my knuckles, bashing them together. Realizing this was probably making me look like a fool, I forced myself to stop fidgeting and stand still. Out of respect, the other man went into the room to look for Lawrence's shoebox.

'It's just…if I go out there, I'll be walking on the streets. With all the other people, going about their lives. I'll walk out of here and…forget. I'm scared that if I go out there I'm going to forget about everything. About Hilton, about the Na'vi, about the good times I had on Pandora, because everything out there will seem so alien to me even though it's home.'

'Listen, Dwight. When you go out there, the only thing that's changed is that you're on Earth, not rotting in jail for something you didn't do.' I coughed at that. Lawrence carried on regardless. 'Think about the times that you've had. They are going to go away just because you walk through a door. Sure, it's scary. I'm scared. But you're going to have to leave this building sometime, whether you leave walking out yourself or if they have to drag you out. To be honest, Dwight, and I mean this in the most respectful way possible, I think you're lying.'

I didn't react.

'You don't want to walk out of that door because you don't know what you'll do. Sure you'll go and eat, have a shower, do whatever it is you've been telling yourself you were going to do when you got out, but what then? We don't have a job, and we don't have any loved ones. We're alone Dwight, and however much that scares us, we're home now, and we can live life by taking one step at a time. The first step is walking through that door. The second id getting changed, the third and the rest are your choice. You can do this Dwight, and deep down, you know it's what you want.'

The room seemed to ring with the silence. I scratched my nose, then replied with a simple:

'Okay.' Steeling myself, I turned right around and walked straight through the doorway, out into the world.

Outside, the final exit of the facility was about 30 meters in front of me, a large gate marking the entrance, a smaller door built into it. The space between where I was standing and the exit was mostly empty, a few buildings on the left and right. A woman came up to me, folded up clothes held in her arms.

'Welcome back to Earth, sir. You can change into these clothes in the toilets over there.' She pointed at a small building not far to my left.

'Are these mine?' I asked.

'They are now.' She replied.

I thanked the woman and went into the bathroom. It was relatively clean. I slowly changed into the black T-shirt and jeans that had been given to me. They were a little too small, but I wouldn't have to wear them for long. I opened the shoebox and took the boots out. I was glad to kick the worn-out, old prison shoes and put the pair of sturdy boots on. I looked at the jumpsuit, bundled into a ball in my hands. After a minute of thinking, I stuffed it into the box and shoved the lid on. It bulged a bit, but fit nonetheless.

I walked out, towards the exit. A man let me through, and with a smile, welcomed me to Earth. I nodded a thank you, my mouth feeling too dry to speak. The facility, or whatever it was, was just on the outskirts of the city. The night was bright with the lights of cars and of buildings. I breathed deeply, the air smelling compellingly different to the filtered, perfectly clean air of the prison and the exopacks. It felt as if I was walking through a dream, hazy, unreal. People walked by, oblivious as to why I was just stood there.

Shivering in just the shirt, I hailed a cab. As I got in and felt the hard seats, the cramped space and the smell of artificial pine cones, I smiled slightly.

'Where to, buddy?' The driver asked. I told him the address of my house. My actual house. Emma's and mine.

Home.


	3. Boxer

I'll always remember my time on Pandora, and I think that in some part, that was who I was now. Ni'awtu, Hilton and the forest _did _have some effect on my personality, that was for sure. Yet I'm still not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. Of course, my lazy days with Hilton, Ni'awtu and sometimes Leyra were great, no doubt about it, but Deibel had had some effect on me as well. That happens when a man tries to kill you. And that's what happens when someone saves your life.

I was going home. The feeling was so strange and alien to me. After being in Prison for many years, I couldn't quite believe that I was free. I could go into a store and buy something I wanted, I could go to sleep when I want, and get up when I want. I licked my lips, feeling scared as the weight of the world dawned on me. I was alone. Apart from Lawrence, literally no one on Earth knew what I had been through. To them, I was just another guy taking a cab ride home. The pine cone scent, while at first appealing, was now sickly. The cramped, hard seats, which started out as something good, quickly turned into something bad. The shoebox lay on my lap, and I was merciful that the cab driver didn't attempt any small talk. I stared out the window at the night. It was too garishly bright after seeing the gentle bioluminescence of Pandora. Advertisements were everywhere, for clothes, for Tv shows that I'd never heard of, even for the RDA. The cab ride was like that for the duration. When we arrived at my house at the top of the hills, I thanked the man and gave him a twenty-dollar note from the roll. I shuffled out of the car and watched the cab's light turn on and zoom off to find another fare.

Looking at my home, I wasn't sure what to feel. The big, 2-story house overlooking the city seemed bigger than what I remembered. On the one hand, I was ecstatic that I was actually here, on Earth at my home. On the other, I felt bad for feeling happy, and cast my memory back to the forest and the Na'vi. The two feelings sort of balanced each other out so I was left feeling numb. I had expected my return to be a glorious, majestic time when I would run into my home and jump on the bed, happy that I was finally away from it all. It wasn't. I ascended the steps to my house, and swiped the card in the door. To my surprise, it still worked and the door opened slowly, like it knew I'd been gone for a long time. I walked in, my tattered shoebox still held in my hands. The door closed smoothly behind me. When I saw the spiral stairs to my right, and the kitchen laid out before me, I sighed.

I remembered the time when I'd come home from the gym or from the mind numbing office job that I eventually quit to go into boxing full time, and Emma would be standing there, waiting for me to come through the door so she could throw her arms around me and ask me how my day went. Or how she'd call me up when I was coming home and ask me to pick up whatever she was craving for. I remember feeling the baby kick, then looking up at Emma and just feeling complete and utter love for her and the baby growing in her womb.

That was all gone now. When I entered the house there was just silence, a ringing, deafening silence. I put my shoebox on a counter, took out the money and put it in my pocket, then looked in the fridge. Everything in there was rotten. I got a black bag from a drawer, shoved everything in it, tied it up, and took it outside. I closed the door and wrote a reminder to pick up some more food. I saw one post-it note on the fridge which just said: 'Go get 'em tiger.' I left it on there. I moved from the kitchen into the living room. The Tv was still there, the sofa was still there, everything was where it has been before. The lights had turned themselves on automatically. I sat down for a second before immediately getting up and going upstairs to our master bedroom.

Nothing relating to the crime was in the house. No blood, no signs of struggle, nothing out of the ordinary. Even the bed covers were made nicely. I made another sweep of my house. Nothing. I didn't check the mailbox outside.

Back in the bedroom, I tried to cast my mind back to the event. I remembered sleeping right in this bed, then hearing noises. Everything after that was a blur. It was very frustrating. Trying to remember the event was a waste of time. I'd done it countless times in jail, going over and over what happened. What was doing it now going to change? I picked up a photo of me and Emma, the one that Deibel had ripped up. I held it tightly in my hands, looking back to a time when everything was simple and we were happy. I'm surprised to say that I didn't cry that night. Like I said, I felt numb, and however much my brain wanted me to cry, my body just wasn't having any of it.

I was at a loss. I didn't know what to do. Everything in my house was the same except for years of dust. It was monumentally depressing.

Now I'm going to talk about something that some of you might not like hearing, so I'll try to be as polite as possible. One of the things I was thinking about, and I'm sort of ashamed to admit it, was sex.

Well, not really sex, but intimacy. I wanted nothing more right now than to just spend a night with Emma, even if it was just for one more time. Failing that, a day in the forest with Leyra and Ni'awtu. Not very intimate but still, it would help me a lot. Just one of them, and I think I would be able to make it.

But I knew that neither of those things were going to happen. Not now, not ever again. And it hurt me to realize that, no matter how long I mourned, no matter how hard that I pined for it, it would never happen. Not knowing what else to do, I fell to sleep on the bed, the photo still clutched in my hands.

I had nightmares that night. Hilton was there, and we were running away from something, but I didn't know what it was. I called out for Ni'awtu to come with her Ikran but nothing came. I wanted to stop running but I couldn't. It went on like that until Hilton just disappeared, and it was me, on my own, in the forest, running relentlessly away from the thing.

I woke up in a sweat, about twenty minutes after I'd fallen asleep. I looked at the photo I as still holding to find that I'd cracked the frame. I put it back on the table and since I had nothing to do, I decided to go out.

So I walked out into the night. The city was somewhat crowded even at this time of night, and nobody paid attention to me. If they did, it's because I was just wearing a shirt on a freezing night. I walked and walked, the sensation feeling strange. The air felt oppressive but the world felt open. It's just like Lawrence said. I'd have to find him sometime, if only for something to do. It didn't surprise me that everything had changed. There were adverts for things I'd never heard of, shops and bars I'd never seen, and even new streets. The cars had become different, the people, the general _feel_ of the city had changed.

On a whim, I crossed the street, nearly getting run over in the process and found myself at the nearest liquor store. I supposed it's what people do in these sort of situations, isn't it? Turn to drink? I went inside and awkwardly nodded at the owner, who didn't nod back. I looked at the various drinks on display. Even this was overwhelming. I'd never been much of a drinker, and didn't know the various brands and sorts of alcohol really. So I picked up a random bottle and paid for it. The man put it in a brown bag and scowled at the paper money. Maybe it was all done by electronics now. I thanked him and went home. I was by my sink, staring at this bottle of whatever it was. I thought of my trainer.

You don't want to be drinking, Dwight. It makes you sloppy, puts you off your objective. You don't want that, do you?

I ended up pouring the drink down the drain. In the bathroom, I found myself staring at my reflection in the mirror. I had a full beard and rather long hair. I knew I hadn't shaved for a while, but this just looked ridiculous. My eyes were sunken and red, and the beard and hair were devoid of any sort of organization or style.

I opened the cupboard, took out a razor, and carefully shaved everything off. All my body hair, I shaved it off. If Pandora was my identity, it was gone now. I had to remember who I was. First and foremost, I asked myself: What are you?

A husband

_ Not any more_

A wash-up

_ Don't be pathetic_

A boxer

Yes. I was a boxer. So I shaved all of my body hair off, we did that because it improved speed in the ring by just a tiny amount, but a tiny amount could be the difference between a win and a loss. I looked better in the mirror now, but that's not to say I looked good. I looked better.

A boxer. That's who I was.

A boxer.


End file.
